


Obscurial Potter and the Life Less Lived

by Sharinarra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Obscurial Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 19:18:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14171712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharinarra/pseuds/Sharinarra
Summary: How Harry Potter never became an Obscurus in canon, I will never know.This is an exploration of how he could have been, and what might have happened.





	Obscurial Potter and the Life Less Lived

Obscurial Potter and the Life Less Lived

It began as little more than a faint murmuring, a whisp of smoke and wind in the back of his mind. 

A little boy ran from his cousins fists, cowered in his cupboard at night, and desperately wished himself normal. 

In the usual course of such things, the suppressed power of his developing magical core, all bound up in his despair and self-disgust, would have grown and grown, bursting at the metaphorical seams of the walls around it until the day its host was finally pushed too far and lost all control.

In the usual course of things, there were five separate incidents where a young Harry Potter would and probably should have lost all control of his unrealised magic and destroyed the small town of Little Whinging in Surrey, along with all of its residents. For that is the usual result of a magical child who is so heavily abused that they instinctually push down and suppress their magic - it will eventually turn dark and violent, a raging force of smoke and soul-rending anguish that does not stop once released until everything in its path has been destroyed and its reserves are used up.  
Such children are called Obscurials, and they are almost always condemned by the nature of their curse to an early grave. 

In the usual course.

But Harry Potter was no usual child. 

The Boy-Who-Lived, Saviour of the Wizarding World, was an unknowing host not only to the magical core that his relatives abuse had lead him to suppress, but was also the unwitting host to a sliver of a soul so utterly drenched in dark magic that it was a miracle that he had never turned dark himself just from the weight of its influence alone, never mind the usual results of abuse on a child’s developing psyche. 

Instead, Harry Potter was a quiet, intelligent child who somehow clung on to the small scraps of goodness and joy that had remained in his memory from the first year of his life, when he had a loving family and nothing bad had ever happened to him.

 

It was this highly _un_ usual confluence of circumstance that managed - quite by accident - to save the boys life, and it would not be for many years after the first whisps of smoke began to swirl about his subconscious that anyone in the Wizarding World would begin to realise just how badly they had failed their hero.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

At first, the forming creature that was the Obscurial within was little more than a faint presence, with no mind or drive beyond the most instinctual level. In time, as Harry grew and managed to keep his control so tightly locked down that it never escaped, all those instinctual calls added up. The Obscurial grew. It developed a rudimentary intelligence. It became the master of the sub- and un-conscious pathways of its hosts mind.  
It watched.  
And it learned.

It was there because the boy needed it. This it knew. Its purpose was to protect the boy from all of the pain and danger that threatened. To make everything that sought to hurt him Go. Away. 

And yet. The boy never once allowed it out to do so.

The Obscurial thought. 

The Obscurial came to one simple conclusion, following the logic allowed by its minimal intelligence and instincts. 

If it was here to protect the boy, and the boy would not let it out to hurt the threats of the Outside, then obviously, there was something on the Inside, here within the Obscurials domain, that was a greater threat.

With that conclusion reached, the Obscurial stopped reacting to the Outside threats, and systematically began to hunt and track through the pathways of the Inside. And found a creeping shard of power that was completely foreign to the host. A shard that was near mindless, but slowly pushing tendrils of corruption outwards, smothering the bright golden lines of the boys natural self. 

Threat. Detected.

The creeping influence of Tom Riddle’s final Horcrux upon its unwitting host was stemmed when the child was seven years old, held in check by the power of the Obscurial that had latched onto its presence as the danger it had developed to face. The two were equally matched; one the fractured soul piece of a Dark Lord, the other the parasitical creature of darkened magic formed of the hosts own natural magical core, weak and simple to begin with, but growing in strength as the magical core from which it drew developed. 

And the longer it fought the Horcrux, focusing all of it power and intent upon that goal, absorbing the tendrils of its foe as they sought to pass it, the more its intelligence and reason grew. 

By the time the boy turned eleven and came into his first magical inheritance, the host was a three-fold being. The dominant personality being that of the completely oblivious Harry Potter, a perfectly normal - if rather emotionally and physically stunted - child who was absolutely delighted to learn that he was no freak at all and that a whole other world of magic existed that he had been invited to join. 

Deep in the recesses of his mind, however, lived two others. The Horcrux was by now the weaker of the two, still firmly entrenched, but now chained and leashed by the creature whose entire purpose was to keep it from harming Harry. And by this point, the Horcrux was the only one of the three entities within that place that did not have its own personality and thoughts. 

With its primary purpose now achieved, though ongoing, the creature was able to look Outwards for the first time in five years. It watched as the child it protected found a new world. It learned alongside the boy. And while most of the Outside threats were lesser or simply similar to those that had always been there - and were therefore no longer noticed as threats - the creature began to pick up a worryingly familiar signature. 

Somewhere in this new place of magic and wonder, the Leashed Threat had another outlet. 

The Host was in Danger. 

The creature, being above all a Hunter and Guard, held its place, and began to apply its cunning, pushing into the boys dreams and influencing his body into unwitting midnight excursions. 

It was during a late night trip to the library, as the creature sought to find out what sort of monster its Foe could be, that it came across a whole other set of new information.

Now, it knew what it was. 

Now, it had a Name.

Obscurial Potter, the Dark Guardian.

 

When the host - in all of his idiotic lack of self preservation and insistence on running into every opportunity for danger he came across - ventured into the rooms of challenge in the belief that a child who could not even protect himself from the dangers of non-magical threats would be needed to protect a powerful artifact from an adult wizard, Obscurial Potter clamped down firmly upon the Foe within, recognising that they were getting closer to its Outside form. How the host had managed to miss or deliberately ignore every warning that Obscurial had managed to send him, every painful episode in his scar when Obscurial had to wrestle the Foe into submission because of their proximity to its other self, Obscurial did not know. 

And so, when the boy passed through the flames to confront the wizard, it was Harry, and Harry alone, who was surprised to discover that the enemy was Professor Quirrel. And it was Obscurial who was prepared for the fight that was to come.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Three days later, lying in the hospital wing as the Twinkling Deceiver tried to claim that Harry was protected by his mother’s love, completely oblivious to the tendrils of smoke that floated in the shared emerald eyes, Obscurial knew that its job was far from over.

The Outside piece of the Foe had tried to possess the host, and had briefly brushed against the chained Inside piece. In that moment, Obscurial had seen a thin blackened line between the two, and had also seen five other lines shooting off into the distance. 

There were more than just these two pieces of the Foe in existence. And Harry would never be safe until every one of them was destroyed or bound. 

Obscurial had found the full scope of his Purpose. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The years after that rolled on. 

The host continued to get into ridiculously dangerous situations while somehow managing to be utterly oblivious to almost every clue ever, and Obscurial continued to throw screamed hints at his dreams in the hopes of getting anything through. It generally didn’t work.

It did work when it was truly needed, however.

Harry was so strongly the dominant personality that even when faced with a 60ft basilisk, he refused to let the barriers down that would let Obscurial act.  
But he was desperate and vengeful enough that when Obscurial tried to make him stab the Foe in the Diary with that big tooth of super dangerous venom, he did it without really realising that it had not been his own thoughts.

The next year, he faced off a deranged madman, a werewolf, and a horde of Dementors. Obscurial very nearly did manage to break out and deal with the problem, but by the time Harry was desperate enough to do so, the chill of the Dementors had latched on, and Obscurial was too busy keeping the chains of the Foe in lockdown, and had to make do with throwing every powerfully happy memory they had up to the conscious brain in the hopes that the boys idiot savant luck would continue. Happily, it did.

Fourth year saw Obscurial almost ready to just quit and destroy everything the second he got any way at all beyond the barriers of Harry’s willpower. Dragons, Merrows, Skrewts, backstabbing and propaganda from all sides, and forced into an unbreakable magical contract… and all the while the Foe within was steadily growing bolder as its link to the main Outside piece grew thicker. Obscurial was not happy, and when they arrived in a graveyard, to be greeted by a traitor and the main piece of the Foe, he was seething.  
When it became obvious that their blood was going to be used in a ritual on the Foe, Obscurial splintered off a piece of himself and pushed it willingly and viciously into the blood that was taken. Voldemort would not realise until it was far, far too late that the ritual had not been done correctly.

In fifth year, almost all of Obscurials energy and time was spent keeping the Foe within chained, split with slowly growing his consciousness and spreading influence in the back of the newly resurrected Voldemort’s mind. The link was there anyway, he figured that he might as well double down on it and make his own route in. When the bitter Dungeon Bat attempted - badly - to teach Harry Occlumency, Obscurial took the time to lock away any and all signs of both his and the Foes presence, then proceeded to leave Harry to struggle with his own barriers. Obscurial did not have time to coddle the host anymore.  
When Harry lost Sirius to the Veil, after a concerted push from Voldemort had breached Obscurials wavering defences by accidentally routing through both links at once, Obscurial felt a pull to the Outside for the first time. Nobody noticed the smoke rising from Harry’s skin, and nobody saw the angry flashes of orange fire that streaked his eyes. But the appearance of Voldemort himself brought Obscurials escape crashing down, as the links began to widen and Obscurial was forced to return Inside to hold the defences against the Foe. 

Sixth year, more of Harry’s actions and beliefs than ever before were fueled by Obscurials voice. With the barriers between them finally weakening, with Harry subconsciously beginning to welcome Obscurials protection, they were finally able to begin working towards a partnership. And then the Twinkling Deceiver finally began to tell Harry - in the most rambling roundabout way possible - about the true scope of their problem and the threat that the Foe represented to them. Obscurial was happy to finally have names and nature put to the shards of the foe that he had long known to exist, but had little to no patience for the the Deceivers convoluted and manipulative way of telling them. It had also not escaped his notice that the deceiver was filled with a dark energy focused on a creeping curse working up his arm. They were probably only even getting told this much now because the Deceiver was going to die before he could push them more.  
And then the deceiver did die. And all of the Obscarry partnerships paranoia and insistence that Malfoy was up to something were proved all too accurate.

With the start of their seventh year, Harry was falling deeper and deeper into the chaotic darkness of despair, depression, and a burning desire for vengeance. Obscurial took full advantage, and as each Horcrux was found and destroyed, the power behind the Foe inside weakened, leaving Obscurial in a stronger and stronger position. 

Finally, Harry learned the full truth of his existence, and there remained only the slightest of walls between Obscurial and his freedom. With all horcruxes but the snake and himself dealt with, Harry laid responsibility for finishing it on the shoulders of the other potential saviour, and went out to die. Obscurial, of course, had laid his own plans.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

A boy, barely a man by the laws of his people, walked into the Forbidden Forest.

His thoughts were a chaotic swirl of grief and rage.

Always, now, he felt as though there were two voices inside of his head, speaking in tandem and shaking with the force of sixteen years of emotional suppression. 

He was going to die.

Honestly, if he could be certain that Voldemort would definitely not survive the night, he actually wanted nothing more than to finally be allowed to lay down his head and simply stop. 

 

A gloating cackle.  
A flash of green light.  
The thud of a body falling lifeless to the floor.

 

Harry Potter awoke in a white, empty space.  
As he concentrated, it took on the appearance of Kings Cross Station, and from the distance came a white robed figure.

His talk with Dumbledore did nothing to help his swirling and clashing emotions.  
He could return, but he would be walking right back into the struggle and fight that he had long since desired only to leave behind.  
But if he didn’t, he had no guarantee that Voldemort would die, and then everything he had suffered and lost would have been in vain. 

He sat alone on the white stone flooring, and cried.

A hand made of smoke reached out to stroke his hair, comfortingly.

Two boys, one flesh, one smoke and flame, but identical in shape and form, looked at each other in full awareness of what the other was for the first time.  
Here, in this place, in this time, no words needed to be spoken.

Harry Potter embraced his brother, then picked up the squalling, mangled baby that was Voldemorts horcrux within him, and strode towards the train. He didn’t look back.

Obscurial Potter watched as his charge boarded the train that would take him to the peace he so desperately needed, knowing that his Purpose was almost complete.  
He turned away, and walked back down the pathways to their body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

A battle ground to a stand still.

A Dark Lord began to gloat. 

The Boy-Who-Lived stood, shooting a spear of wind at the snake that was so violent it tore the serpent to shreds. 

Voldemort screamed in fury, and turned his wand upon the boy.

The watchers of both sides found themselves pinned in place by the growing pressure surrounding them.

Obscurial Potter looked the Dark Lord in the eye, preparing his opening shot through the link that bound them.

For the first and last time, Obscurial Potter stood in the Outside, and spoke.

“No.”

The body of the Boy-Who-Lived burst into a hurricane of smoke and flame and rending claws.  
The Dark Lord fell to his knees as his brain and heart were shredded from the inside out, smoke streaming from his ruined eyes as he collapsed, lifeless, to the floor. 

Obscurial turned upon the Death Eaters first, and the defenders of Hogwarts fled with the release of that overbearing pressure that had burst into a hurricane of power.

By the time it was over, not a single Death Eater remained amongst the living. Obscurial had used the links provided by the Dark Marks to destroy every single one of them, no matter where they were. 

There was also very little of the castle or grounds remaining, and not every victim of his rage unleashed had been an attacker. 

Obscurial, completely unbound and overwhelmed by instinctual rage, with all traces of his Foe gone, had torn apart everything and everyone in his path until his magical core was finally drained of every drop. Then, there was an eerie and unsettling silence. 

No trace of Harry Potter was ever found, and he went on record as the longest lived and strongest Obscurial to have ever existed.

In the years to follow, the tale of the Boy-Who-Lived and how badly he had been failed to have become what he was, became the greatest shame of Magical Britain as the details of his home life slowly came to light and the treatment of him by the Ministry and the Press tore such a rift in the trust of the public that the political system which had endured for centuries crumbled, and an entirely new form of government rose from the ashes.

But the Boy(s)-Who-Lived neither knew nor cared about any of this.

No one ever saw either of them again.


End file.
